Febble: as moderator here, let me welcome you. Whatever your views, I'm sure you'll find this a more hospitable place than UncommonDescent. Somebody earlier said that you have scientific training, so I'm doubly sure you have things to contribute here. Happy posting.

-Steve

Thanks! Well, I didn't exactly expect a welcome at Uncommon Descent, but it was an interesting experiment in natural selection.

I'm a neuroscientist, and I'm interested in computational models of cognition. My point, over at UD, was simply that replication with modification + natural selection is a model of cognition - specifically, of learning. So it's an intelligent system, which is why it's products look like the products of an intelligence - they are.

But deciding whether there is any intention behind them is just as intractable a problem as deciding whether there is any true intention behind our own apparently directed actions. It's the "free will" problem again, and I don't think there is any objective test of free will.